


Working Holiday

by Shayvaalski



Series: The Kids Are Alright [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, Gen, Guns, I Don't Even Know, Kid Fic, Mental Health Issues, Minor Violence, Oh My God, Parentlock, Post Reichenbach, Series, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, seb moran: minder of highly sensitive people, the kids are alright
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-02 19:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Moriarty believes in take-your-daughter-to-work day, so when business beckons, the whole family goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working Holiday

**Author's Note:**

> It's useful, but not strictly necessary, to have read "Runs in the Family" (part one of the series) before reading this, as "Working Holiday" takes place about four years afterwards.
> 
> "Bad Blood" is also recommended reading; click on the collection for it.

The first time they go on holiday, Siobhan is almost twelve. Tommy has to stay behind, because, dad says, he has his own family, sweetheart, and they see little enough of him as it is. She knows this is not entirely true, sees it in the careful way mum packs his suits and the even-more-than-usual attention dad pays to cleaning the long sniper rifle Siobhan longs to be allowed to shoot. Usually he lets her break it down for him, gives her the soft cloth to clean the parts her small fingers can reach better than his, but today she stays curled up on the couch and just watches, fascinated, as her calm father goes intent and focused and detached. He is not there in the room with her but somewhere else, and until mum comes in and lay a hand on his shoulder that’s where he stays. 

“Sebby,” he says, and Siobhan never gets tired of hearing mum call dad by his name, the way it makes dad’s whole self refocus. “It’s past her bedtime. How long have you been out here?”

Dad glances over at her, and Siobhan yawns at him, wide and deliberate and vaguely insulting, knowing that mum wants her in bed less because it's late and more because there are things her parents still need to do that Sebastian thinks she is too young to see. “Run along, pet,” says Jim, affectionate and distant, and Siobhan notes the way his fingers curl into dad’s shirt and goes.

Within the next year, she guesses, unbraiding her black hair in the dark of her room, dad is going to take her aside and have another talk with her about mum, and what he and mum do together and why, and she looks forward to informing Sebastian that Jim has already explained about sex quite thoroughly. (Your daddy won’t like it that I got _technical_ , baby, but he's going to want to tell you about _love_ and you’re old enough now, Siobhan, to know that’s probably not going to be part of the conversation for you.)

Siobhan falls asleep to the sound of her mum’s laugh, to dad's answering murmur and the thump of a body meeting the wall.

 

They are on the way to the hotel when Siobhan sees the tremor go through mum, and she touches dad's hand where it rests on his knee and flicks her eyes across the cab. He follows her gaze (Jim is distracted by the movement of the wheels, by the scenery passing by at speed) and shakes his head, slightly, to the left: Later, sweetheart. Siobhan folds her thin hands in her lap and watches mum, trusting that Sebastian (who has, as he sometimes reminds her gently, some ten years experience) has read the situation correctly but still alert.

Mum shifts in his seat, runs a hand over the slight stubble on his chin, licks his lips. Siobhan is beginning to feel like the cab is too small, like mum might be catching. She makes a small considering noise in the back of her throat, half interested in what’s happening and half anxious because Tommy’s not here and dad will have to handle mum first, and begins to yank at a loose thread from the hem of her shirt. Deep breath in through the nose, out through the mouth, three times before dad glances sharply at her and says, mildly, “Jim.”

Jim looks over and they have one of those silent conversations that Siobhan always feels like she should be able to follow (after all she’s so like mum, and dad is so easy to read) but never can. Mum smoothes his hair, dad recrosses his legs, and they both look at her. “Pet, give me three easily defensible buildings within five kilometers of our house,” says mum, and Siobhan can tell that the outburst hasn’t been prevented but put off. She blinks. She can’t do that. Didn’t know mum could. But--

“The primary school,” she says automatically. “Dad’s work, because it’s in a stand-alone building, not connected on either side. Does our shed count?”

Dad snorts, and mum reaches across and touches her cheek lightly. He looks calm, but his fingertips against her skin tell Siobhan that Jim has an hour of sanity left. Maybe two. She hopes dad knows. “As I seem to have neglected to strictly define the parameters of the question, yes, it does.”

She smiles up at him, brief and brilliant and soothed. “The shed then. It’s the best of them. A lone sniper or gunman could hold it indefinitely.”

“Because I _designed_ it to be defensible. Jim, that’s cheating and you know it.” Dad's not really annoyed, Siobhan can hear it in his voice, a kind of round warmth that mum can mimic and Siobhan hasn't yet learned. He smoothes her braid, square fingers gentle and strong (deep breath in through the nose, he says, his voice firm inside her head, and out through the mouth, and get away from the situation quick as you can) and she knows he will not let harm come to her or mum.

“Tommy’s cowbarn, then,” she says, peaceably, and leans her head against dad’s side. “Stone walls, small windows, the main door is thick and easily barred from the inside. Only one other door, which a single person could defend if necessary.”

“Good girl,” murmurs mum, taking his hand from her cheek and sitting back, and, “Go to sleep, Bhan,” says dad, and the cab rocks her. “We’ll be there soon.”

 

After lunch, Siobhan half-reads a book and waits for dad to send her down to the pool, or the TV room, or even out into the city, around the corner to the bookshop they saw on the way, so that he can finally get a handle on the tension humming around mum’s thin body, but the familiar words do not come and do not come, and she cannot focus on the pages. Mum’s not pacing, or fidgeting, or even moving but he is a shout into silence and Siobhan echoes like a cave, and one of them is going to snap.

Siobhan’s head cracks against the headboard, and she rocks forward because it _hurts_ , and then back again because that’s _fine_ with her, that’s easier, and dad reacts just barely in time to catch the base of her skull in one hand, grab her arm in the other. She has no choice but to let him swing her around and down onto the other end of the bed, tangling her in the covers to arrest her movement. Siobhan hisses through her teeth, tries to struggle free. 

“Fuckin’ hell, Jim,” says dad, shortly, and “Yes, _alright_ , I've got it,” says mum, and he closes his eyes and the hum ebbs to a place she can tolerate. Siobhan shudders, relaxes. Dad backs up, but he’s watching her, and she knows this close and weighing look, this is not the time, Siobhan, this is not the place, and she stares back, small wild thing, thin chest heaving, until mum picks up the blanket and begins to neaten it, drawing Siobhan’s attention to the precision of the folds.

“I am going to need you to _rein it in_ ,” says dad, and _military,_ notes Siobhan, _shoulders square gaze unyielding back straight used to giving orders Colonel Sebastian Moran_. “Both of you.”

“Ease up, Sebby. She's young yet.” Mum tucks the blanket under his chin, doubles it onto itself, voice very mild. Siobhan watches hungrily, concentrating on one thing, just one, as they have taught her since the day she came home.  The edges of the blanket do not quite line up and she makes a soft distressed sound, but mum’s hands are moving, exact and aware, and when he lays it in Siobhan’s lap it is hospital-corner-precise. “There, pet.” His eyes slide over towards dad, dark brown and holding onto control in a way that makes her uneasy. Dad should be _doing_ something, can he not see what's happening? “Best get her some fresh air, tiger. I’m handling it, but—”

“Yeah. Ten minutes enough?”

They are talking over her head, almost seeming to forget that Siobhan can hear.

“Make it fifteen, baby, it’s been a _long_ time since our last holiday.” She can hear the tone in Jim’s voice that should mean Seb comes to breakfast bruised, a sense of normalcy restored, but instead dad says “Fine,” and picks Siobhan up. She is too old to be carried, though statistically small for her age, but the set of her father’s shoulders beneath, and the little check to his breath as they go down the stairs, tells Siobhan it is better to stay quiet.

“Can you hold on until the evening, sweetheart?” asks dad, putting her down in the tiny courtyard enclosed in the middle of the hotel. There is a small tree, grass, a flowerbed, a fountain, and Siobhan climbs up on the low wall surrounding it. Seb sits next to her, slips a hand under her chin so that his gray-green eyes are her entire field of vision. Looking at dad is always easy, always steady, and his outlines are solid and unshivering. “If not, tell me now. I’ll stay with you. Mum can manage on his own until tonight.”

Siobhan jerks her head back a little, but Seb keeps a gentle hold on her--this is not the way things go, dad handles mum, mum comes _first_ , Seb keeps them all safe and under control, blood smearing lightly against the wall so that it does not pool deep and still on the floor, stops Jim the way Tommy will someday stop her, and Siobhan drags the pads of her fingers along the stone wall until dad catches up both her hands in one of his.

“Siobhan Moran. Look at me.”

Dad leans his forehead into hers. Bhan has seen him do this with mum, one of the few intimacies Jim permits on terms other than his own, and she’s always known--in a theoretical way--that what Seb was saying was _I love you, you are safe_ , but she has never heard it with her body before, felt clearly and plainly exactly what her father means. Siobhan’s chest loosens and she can breathe.

“My good girl.” Dad does not let go. “Bhan, honey, it’s going to be fine. Do you want to sit out here until dinner?” She nods, and he sits back. “Alright. I’ll go get your book, you just stay here and breathe.”

The late-afternoon air is warm against her skin. Siobhan watches dad’s back until it vanishes into the building, counts the seconds she knows it will take for him to get upstairs, holds onto the edge of the fountain, knuckles white and face composed.

 

Siobhan leaves with Seb, much later, after dusk has fallen and dad has checked mum over, being sure his tie is knotted in such a way that it cannot be pulled tighter by unscrupulous hands, that the suit lies perfectly smooth over the thin bulletproof vest and the trousers break just right at the arch of his foot, not long enough to trip him up, that the gun (small, for emergencies _only_ , Jim) is invisible under the cloth. Siobhan can tell that dad doesn't need to do this, that mum is already immaculate and as safe as Seb can make him, but there's something like ritual to the hands that smooth Jim’s collar. When dad kisses mum, Siobhan is unsurprised, even though she has never seen Seb bend and press his mouth to Jim’s before now. They are not thinking of her, this is a routine that predates Siobhan by, if she had to guess, between three and five years.

She finds it soothing.

“Be careful,” says dad, and there is something unsaid beneath his words. “We’ll be in place before you get there.”

Mum makes the familiar, dismissive huffing noise Siobhan mostly hears when Sebastian asks, _And did you eat today?_ and curves a delicate wrist, flicks thin fingers. “You worry too much, Sebby. She’ll be fine.”

“Hush.” Dad knocks his hand away, casually violent, and she leans against his hip and gazes up at the the intensity vibrating between them, a transmutation of whatever has been humming in the air all day. Mum looks strained around the mouth and his eyes are very dark, like he has only a few minutes, and dad is _leaving him alone here_. Siobhan’s fingers seek and find Seb’s elbow, and he glances down, his calm simple face unreadable.

“Time to go, I think,” says mum, and smiles, a small curve that does not spread much farther than his mouth. “You and your daddy run along now, pet.”

They run along, her hand in Sebastian’s, and because dad does not glance backwards over his shoulder Siobhan does not either.

 

The rules for being on the roof are very simple, but dad makes her recite them back to him twice in the half hour hour they lay on their backs waiting for a car to pull up four stories down. The rifle is already set up and pre-aimed; Seb will make exact adjustments later, allowing for Jim's movements and the target's height, but for now they are just killing time.

“Again.”

She makes a face. “Stay down. Stay quiet. Obey orders. Tell you if the edge gets too tempting. Don’t move, even if--” Siobhan stops, shying like a colt from whirling leaves. Dad finishes for her. “Even if something happens to mum.”

She flinches away, hisses under her breath. You’re supposed to keep him _safe._

“Bhan, you have to trust me—” The sound of wheels on gravel is as clear as if they were crouched next to the car, and Seb moves like a great cat, rolling over and dropping any pretense of relaxation, breath gone shallow and easy. Siobhan creeps over to where he lays, half propped up, eye pressed against the scope, and without looking dad reaches out and tucks her under his right arm, sheltered and protected against his ribcage.

“Pocket of my coat,” he breathes, sound meant for her and her alone. “Binoculars.”

She retrieves them almost noiselessly, feels the fractional approving press of dad’s elbow into hers. Siobhan follows his gaze downwards, focusing the binoculars on the tall pale woman getting out of the car.

“Not her.” If she was a centimeter further away Siobhan could not have heard him. She presses closer. “Leave Lady Anaïs and her men to me. Watch your mum.”

She pans the glasses left, then right, and then there is mum, stepping out from nowhere at all, still thirty yards away from the woman with the ice-blonde hair and bodyguards like twin trees. His body carries every danger sign that Seb has taught her, all the small twitches and tensed muscles and considering noises from a dropped-jaw mouth that Jim and Siobhan share, and she stiffens against her dad in an echo of the stiffness in her mother’s wrist and neck, makes a tiny sound in the back of her throat. Seb's hip shifts warningly into hers, _Hush, sweetheart, hush,_ and Siobhan swallows the rising panic down, half-chokes and swallows again, free hand digging its nails into the suntanned skin of dad’s wrist, unable to stop looking, she is going to _lose her mum_ and dad doesn’t even care, isn’t moving, even he cannot take out three people from four stories up and still get to Jim in time, and all the Moriarty in her screams out for release, the blood, her mother's blood, rising up to fill her veins and seep into the carpet at her feet--

\--and then mum shifts his weight the tiniest bit, rolls his slender neck, smoothes a hand over his hair, and smiles. A _sane_ smile. Dad lets out a long, long breath that ends in the barest huff of laughter, murmurs _Show off_ , and frees the hand not resting on the trigger to touch Siobhan softly between the shoulder-blades. The tide of panic ebbs, lapping down her arms and receding from her mouth so that she can breathe and feel the rough gravel beneath her knees and hips. Mum is moving easily, threatening instead of threatened, circling the tall woman like a shark. She can’t tell what he’s saying but whatever it is has Anaïs totally cowed, and when mum flicks her sternum hard with one finger she flinches and lets him.

One of the tree-trunk men starts forward and dad squeezes the trigger before he has made it a full step, dropping him like a stone. The other man and the blonde woman go absolutely still, and Jim throws his head back and laughs, free and easy and cruel. Siobhan has never seen him like this, pure, distilled down into nothing but that streak of rage  and something else, nameless, that runs through both of them, and she takes her eyes away from mum (because it is over, now, she knows this like she knows how long it would take for her to fall if she jumped, intimately, inexplicably) and looks steadily at Seb.

Seb, who knew exactly what was going to happen.

He can feel her gaze, because though his eyes and hands stay steady and focused, dad tilts his head very slightly in her direction and says, “It’ll come to you in time, Siobhan. Not quickly or easily. But it _will_ come.”

Below, Jim is breaking one of the woman’s fingers; a scream floats up to them on the breeze and the other bodyguard’s eyes scan the surrounding rooftops frantically. Another scream, the man reaching out to grab mum by the collar, and Siobhan is safe and warm, loved by the muffled crack of the rifle and dad's hand against her back. Soon they will go back to the hotel, mum relaxed and giddy, and tomorrow they will be a family on holiday, which dad has promised means opera and ice cream and breaking into a museum.

Car wheels skid on gravel; mum waves, blows a kiss, settles down to wait. “Here,” says dad, and gives her the stand to fold while he breaks down the rifle and puts it away, piece by careful piece, and then he gets to his feet and Siobhan puts her hand in his.

She is going to be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Best of thanks to andthebluestblue, my long-suffering beta and writing partner (and boyfriend), and to jackmarlowe and atricksterstype and srrrevans and boxoftheskyking for egging me on. Constantly.


End file.
